What Does Ezekiel 23:29 Mean?
And they will deal with you in hate, and they will take all your toil, and leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your harlotries will be uncovered, both your plotting and your harlotries.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.THE KEY
The verb translated “discovered” shares a root that can also mean deporting someone, binding exposure to the passage’s stripping and removal.
THE MEANING
This verse names betrayal in its most exposing form: others take what you have labored for, abandon you naked, and bring your sexual shame into view. It holds dispossession and bodily exposure together without softening either.
THE ROOT
וְנִגְלָה
weniglāh
GROWS FROM
ג־ל־ה
g-l-h
Uncover or reveal; in another verb form, carry away captive or deport.
The Hebrew נִגְלָה (niglâ, “is uncovered”) comes from a root that also forms a verb for deporting or carrying away captive. English separates these ideas, while the verse’s scene holds exposure beside plunder and abandonment.
ALSO GROWS
gālāh: Uncover, reveal.
גָּלָה
This is the root’s sense in “shall be discovered”: what was covered is laid bare.
higlâ: Deport, carry away captive.
הִגְלָה
This branch joins the language of uncovering to forced removal, echoing the verse’s stripping and loss.
THE PATTERN
The language of uncovering can name hidden things brought to light or a body exposed in violation.
He uncovers the depths out of darkness, and brings out to light the deepest darkness.Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will not meet you as a man.For there is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be known.THE THREAD
He uncovers the depths out of darkness, and brings out to light the deepest darkness.Job uses the same גלה root, rendered “discovereth,” for bringing hidden depths out of darkness. In Ezekiel the root names brutal exposure; the surrounding words show how uncovering can appear as violation rather than revelation.
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